Yesterday’s GP of Alabama was a strategical race divided into two groups. The likes of Romain Grosjean, Pato O’Ward, Scott Dixon and went for a two-stopper, but it was a strategy that required a tonne of fuel saving throughout each stint.
On the other side, we saw all the Team Penske cars, as well as Alexander Rossi and Felix Rosenqvist in the Arrow McLarens go on an aggressive three-stop stint. They could push without any worries on fuel.
Grosjean was by far the strongest and most impressive driver of the people who did a two-stop. Although he ultimately lost out to Scott McLaughlin in the battle for victory and had to settle for 2nd, he finished almost 19s ahead of the next best driver on the two-stop — Pato O’Ward in P4.
Photo credit: Penske Entertainment | James Black
Speaking in his post-race press conference, Grosjean did not mince his words about the lack of enjoyment when you have to do so much fuel saving during a race.
“It’s probably the most frustrating type of racing,” said Grosjean. “You know you can go faster, you want to keep the throttle pinned in, but you can’t.
“I think today probably didn’t play in our favor the wind direction. There are two big places where you are going to do lift and coast. Basically you lift the throttle before the end of the straight line, you leave the car rolling until you get to the brake point.
“It was 12 and five. Both of them were the headwinds. I think it was slowing down the car more than it should have. That probably played a bit of a role in the lap time. Probably something to keep in mind for the future.
“Out of 90 laps, I think I did three laps where I was flat out, that’s it. The rest I had to lift and coast and save fuel.
“It’s a strategy we decided as a team before the race. We thought we could win with it, but obviously no.”
For Will Power, it was the absolute opposite, yesterday’s race was one he loved because he could push so much.
Last year he made the two-stop work to gain 15 places on the Sunday. This time around he did it via the three-stop route and made up eight places to see the chequered flag in P3.
“I mean, last year I did the two-stop, was doing what he had to do, went from 19th to 4th. This year we did the opposite thinking that the fuel mileage will be harder,” said Power on the three Team Penske cars going for a three-stopper.
“If there’s not a yellow, the number is going to be too big and the lap time deficit is too much. Yeah, it kind of turned out like that. I think the yellow helped the three-stoppers a bit. Would have saved those guys a little bit of fuel. It was perfect timing for our pit stop.”
Power sat in P9 for the only restart of the race, and he made his strategy work by pumping in fastest laps later in the stint before his final stop.
After overtaking Rossi quite quickly on the resumption, he then overcut Dixon, Lundgaard, Palou, O’Ward and an ailing Newgarden to move into the podium spots.
He whittled down an 18s gap at one point to just 3s on Scott McLaughlin at the end, but he couldn’t find a way past Grosjean for P2.
“It’s a lot more fun when you get to just go all out, qualifying laps every lap. I really enjoy that sort of racing.”
Power also paid tribute to the job Grosjean did yesterday, stating how tough it is to manage fuel to such an extent while going quickly.
“I have to say what he did is extremely difficult and technical. To finish 20 seconds ahead of the next guy is pretty impressive.”
Photo credit Penske Entertainment | Karl Zemlin
